Currentley I have 29k CO miles and am pretty much unable to redeem them on anything that I would like. Gotta love NonePass!

My home airport is DTW.

Do you think I should transfer these out via Amtrack-United?
Would my redemption chances go up??

Also,
My limited air travel is mostly with Family...
I have signed them up for FF programs - but would like to try and combine these accounts if at all possible?
My Wife has 23k CO miles
My 3 year old has 4300 NW miles.
My 5 year old 6800 CO miles.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. ^

-matt

It is usually far easier to redeem on UA than CO.

This involves some risk, but other have reported success transfering from different Amtrak accounts to the same UA account.

So you combine some miles CO-Amtrak-UA.

Transfer your miles CO --> Amtrak --> United
Transfer 20k of your wife's mile CO --> Amtrak --> United (And if she gets 2k more CO miles, transfer that 5k block as well)
Transfer 5k of your 5 yr old's miles CO --> Amtrak --> United

Then make sure to earn United miles no matter who you fly -- if it's United or USAirways, just credit the miles to United. If it's Continental, Delta, Northwest, or Alaska then credit the miles to Continental and transfer to Amtrak to United. If it's American or Midwest Airlines, credit the miles to Midwets and transfer to Amtrak and then United. (Note that Amtrak allows each account to transfer out only 25k points per calendar year, so you'll have to wait till 2005 to transfer future chunks to United)

Then get yourself a United Visa, which is available free the first year with a 15k signup bonus (or 20k signup bonus with fee right away). And get one for your wife. And start earning!

United miles are FAR easier to redeem than CO miles!

Although if you choose not to go this route, make sure you don't rely on the Continental website to try to redeem those CO miles as it won't search partner awards. You'll have a much better chance using your miles on Delta than you will on Continental (or Northwest).

Take your 3 year old sons miles on NW and get some magazines! I think they have a National Geographic for kids that is available..

Great advise here!!!
Thank you all very much for helping me.
I think I will go the United route.

Figure I could take my 29k United miles and add the 15k from Visa to these.
Take my brides 23k miles and add 15k to her account with Visa.

Mabey try and transfer the 5k into one of our accounts from 5 year olds account. Any suggestions on the proper way to try this?

Order NG Kids for my 3 year old with the NWA miles.

Thanks again for all your help!


Edit:
Ohh, one last question: do United miles expire? Couldn't find anything on this from their rules. Thank you.

A note on the transfers: they must be done in blocks of 5000.... so you may want to adjust your visa transfers accordingly.

Also, Amtrak is giving a 1000 mile bonus for updating account info, so you can squeeze a few extra out this way--- although you would once again only be anle to transfer blocks of 5000 out of Amtrak-- up to a max 25k/year out of Amtrak.

Not sure I know what you mean by this...Can you explain?
I signed up for UA Visa and will get 15-20k miles here - then transfer 25K of my 29k CO miles to UA via Amtrack.
Did I miss anything?

Thanks in Advance.

If you fly out of DTW why would you want to go with United and not Northwest? I believe United's flights out of DTW pale in comparison with NW. All your CO miles can be redeemed in NW...I think the chances of United going under or cutting back on DTW flights are way much more than the chances of NW cutting flights out of their premiere hub airport.

You may want to take a look at the flight timetable of both United and NW and compare their flights out of DTW before you make such a drastic move. And get yourself the Starwood AMEX which will allow you to earn a mile per dollar (with a 5k bonus when you transfer 20k points) to pretty much ANY airline.

Just my two cents.

Also thinking along the same line...
Can u direct me to a thread or explain where I could obtain this Starwood AMEX? Also do you get 5k with a 20k transfer? What transfer??
Any further info would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thank you.

check out Gary's site

http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/index.htm

Go to Credit Cards and then Free Credit Cards and then scroll down to the Starwood AMEX section. It explains it very well.